We're hearing so much about technology infrastructure failure in New Orleans and Mississippi: lack of cell phone networks, cops draining gas from stranded cars, power gone, backup generators failing in hospitals that went days longer than they should have on emergency power. One guardsman said his men had gone back to ancient times, sending men as runners from place-to-place, as that was the only way to communicate between units. I've long been a proponent of aggressively moving forward to alternative energy sources such as hybrids, solar, and fuel-cell. The naysayers scoff at it as impractical and expensive. But what if there'd been advanced solar power cells on the roofs of the NO hospitals? What if all the buildings--even the cop's communication devices and laptops--ran on portable fuel cells? We could have seen people plugging their oxygen tanks and dialysis machines into outlets receiving power from still-functioning buildings, rather than dying for want of electricity. A year ago I wrote the following as a response to a conversation with someone in this group (was it you, Astro?) about the need to push toward a day when those "alternative" sources become mainstream sources of energy. In light of what's happened after the hurricane, i think this is still appropros. Sometimes science fiction themes *should* become science fact... [From June 2004] Well, I agree alternative energy sources would be expensive at the start, but so is any new technology. The problem is that we waited too long to get started. Had this country bit the bullet and dedicated funds and research to solar/wind/fuel cell power back during the Energy Crisis of the '70's, we'd have cheaper, more affordable sources by now. It's like the new hybrid cars. Those things are selling like hotcakes, the waiting list is a year or more, yet now some people complain they aren't getting the super gas mileage expected, and they cost too much. Well, if Detroit had seriously started working on hybrids a couple of decades ago, they'd be more advanced and not cost as much. Sometimes you suffer living in a land of plenty. You don't start working on problems until they become critical. We're not very good with longe-range thinking. Americans also don't like to think about doing more than one thing. The ultimate solution is a combination of oil, fuel from other sources such as corn, and the solar/wind/fuel cell thing. No one energy source will meet all our needs in the foreseeable future. But Americans don't like it: it's too complicated.
That's what I meant about "the land of plenty". In war-torn European and Asian nations they had no choice but to rebuild in the last few decades. They learned there to be more concerned about efficiency and backups than about the biggest and best as Americans do. Many Asians can't afford fancy cars and SUVs, so they ride bikes. Europeans like to travel from one country to the other and love their natural beauty, so they have incredibly efficient rail systems. Many poor nations make it mandatory for large buildings such as hospitals to have realiable backup power systems, as their national grids can't be trusted. Suggest that here and people look at you like you're an alien. I think every large building could/should have fuel cell/solar systems that could power it even if the whole nation's electrical grid were sabotages. But we Americans want the biggest cars with the fanciest stereos, the biggest engines, etc., and didn't care how much oil they were burning. We laughed at alternative fuel advocates as hippy Greenpeace nuts, and the big mega-corporations saw no profit in it. Well now we're reaping the results of our egocentricism, selfishness, and greed. We have no choice. The national mindset HAS to change to start appreciating diverse fuel sources, efficient cars, and an increase in mass transit. As for the oil, it takes millions of years for nature to convert dead animals into the oil found underground. Nothing we take is going to be replenished anytime in the next few thousand years [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Life without art & music? Keep the arts alive today at Network for Good! http://us.click.yahoo.com/FXrMlA/dnQLAA/Zx0JAA/LRMolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scifinoir2/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
